How to Sell Slip-ons Online 

Start build your first online store and sell everything anywhere

Blu Kicks

• Opened in 2011

Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?

Create your first online store and sell worldwide 

The inspiration for our initial product came out of nowhere. We were on a boat and my mom and her friend commented that a fish we saw moving through the water looked like a sneaker. When we got to shore, she hand-painted a few white canvas shoes to mimic the colors of the fish. Those initial shoes looked cool, but we didn't really envision pursuing a whole business around them until we looked around and noticed that nearly everyone on the beach was wearing black or brown flip-flops. We saw an opportunity to interject some color and fun into the vacation shoe market.

We had this prototype of a hand-painted shoe and we took it around to everyone we knew until we started getting introduced to suppliers. Our first real samples were made with a cobbler here in San Francisco. Having those samples helped us get in the door with an overseas factory who was able to produce enough shoes for us to start selling online.

How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?

Our first sales came via word of mouth. Since we had been working on the concept for a while, there was some demand for the products right when we launched. From there we started building out our blog and Facebook presence, which started to get us momentum. But, over the long-term, our biggest sales successes have been almost entirely due to press and bloggers. Our product is unique in the way it looks and we've always been willing to send out free samples to writers/bloggers/influencers. That has made a big difference. Getting covered in both online and offline media outlets really drives traffic and ultimately sales.

We opened a pop-up shop this summer which has been our best sales outlet this summer. Our wholesale business has steadily grown since we started, but right now our best channels are online and our pop-up.

Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?

We've been using ShipStation since we launched to handle all of our shipments – wholesale, online, samples, international. We also use Shopify’s QuickBooks Online integration, which makes running the accounting side painless and easy. The other app we really like is Delighted; it automates the process for collecting customer feedback and knowing your Net Promoter Score. It takes almost zero work to set up and manage and it is a great way to understand what customers are thinking and saying about your products.

We still handle all fulfillment and shipping internally. Early on I think it's important to do some of that in-house since it gives you a sense of what you're going to be asking for down the line. Also, handling fulfillment allows us to talk to our customers whenever they have an issue or need to exchange for a different size. Being able to communicate directly with the people who are buying and interested in your product is really invaluable.

What are your top recommendations for new store owners?

Your first online store can build easy 

One of the main things we've learned is to keep things as simple as possible. In the beginning it's better to do one or two things really well than many things poorly. Part of that is finding places where you can leverage tools and software to free up time to focus on growing the business.

Now You Can Create Orders and Accept Credit Cards in the Shopify Admin 

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

• by Tom Burnes

Shopify merchants can now create orders and accept credit card payments through the Shopify Admin, making it easier to sell wholesale, take orders over the phone, and more.
Order creation was designed for businesses that need the flexibility to create custom orders. This new tool makes it easy to build orders in Shopify using existing products, new line items, one-time discounts, and customizable shipping rates. Plus, it allows you to save and track draft orders from Shopify’s new Drafts section.
When you’re done building a new order, just click Email invoice or Pay with credit card to process payment. Email invoice sends your customer a customizable message along with a link to a pre-filled checkout, and Pay with credit card lets you type your customer’s credit card and billing information into your Shopify Admin.

How Two Penny Blue Uses Order Creation to Sell Wholesale

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

Two Penny Blue, a luxury fashion boutique, now uses Shopify’s order creation to sell wholesale and take phone orders. Before they could create orders in Shopify, Two Penny Blue found it difficult to take wholesale orders, and instead had to rely on their accounting system and spreadsheets.
“We’re a multi-channel business with a retail location, online store, and wholesale but we had no way to easily track inventory levels across all three,” said Katelynne Egley, Director of Sales at Two Penny Blue.
Shopify order creation allows Two Penny Blue to keep all their order, sales, and inventory data in one place. This helps them avoid the extra work that comes with managing more than one system. Everything can be done in Shopify, saving them hours each week.

How to create an order in the Shopify Admin

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

To create an order, log in to your Shopify Admin, go to your Orders page, and click Create Order. Once you’ve created your order, you can email an invoice or accept credit card right from the Shopify Admin. You can also mark orders as Paid if you’ve already accepted payment or as Pending if you're expecting a payment at a later date. To review past orders click Drafts, which you can find in the Orders section of the left navigation menu.
Order creation is available to all merchants but only those using direct payment gateways can process credit cards through the Shopify Admin. If you’re using Shopify Payments, we’ve removed any additional fee for manually processing credit cards from your Shopify Admin or Shopify POS. Now, the rate to manually process a credit card is your regular online rate.

How This Young Family Grew Their Online Business and Made Over $40,000 in One Day 

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

• by Tucker Schreiber 
• Dec 3, 2015

Taft produces unique handmade clothing, footwear, and accessories. Their initial launch struck a chord with men and women across the globe when they launched a successful Kickstarter campaign selling no-show socks.
Since then, Taft has experienced exponential growth through social media marketing, growth hacking, and more.
In this customer spotlight, we caught up with Kory of Taft to take a look into this family run business to see how they got to where they are today, and how they earned over $40,000 in one day after being featured on Reddit.

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Learn how to earn your first $1,000 with Reddit ads. Click here to download (.pdf)

Can you give us a bit of background on Taft?

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

My wife and I both graduated from University in April of 2013 and almost immediately after, took off for a five week trip to Europe. I had a couple job offers but none that I felt really excited about. I studied linguistics and minored in business management, but at the end of the day nothing felt really right.
I thought about going into management consulting, but my wife and I both thought the hours were just too much - we were expecting our first child and I wanted to be around.
During the last week of our trip, standing at the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris, I had the idea to start making men’s no-show socks. It was totally out of the blue, but I had seen so many people in Europe going sockless so it was just on my mind throughout the trip.
I knew it couldn’t be comfortable to always be barefoot, and I knew it couldn’t be good for their shoes. I also knew that there weren’t any great no-show options for men out there - they were all too flimsy or slipped down off your heel after a few steps.

As soon as we got home I set to work on finding sock production in Asia, and almost immediately started prototyping. We had never done anything like this before but I was passionate about the idea and I just felt in my gut like we could really rock it.
I’ll never forget sending Paint (yes, Microsoft Paint) renderings of sock designs out to my family and friends, asking for their input. These designs were absolutely horrible, and I’m sure my parents were concerned about my “after-college” plans.
It took months of prototyping (and learning how to use Illustrator) to get it right but after a while we finally had a product I was really stoked about. We did tons of wear-testing and started to prep a Kickstarter campaign. We launched the Kickstarter campaign in March of last year, and fulfilled all the orders late in the Summer.

We started Taft as a husband and wife and still operate the business out of our home, now with two little kids in tow.

How did you create, manufacture or source your product? What were some lessons you learned during this process?

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When we started out with no-show socks, we found a product that we thought was a good starting point and then scoured Alibaba until we found that manufacturer. It took some time to get the communication rolling, but we requested samples from them right away. They started out by sending us what they had done in the past, and we tried to pinpoint which socks were the closest to what we’d envisioned.
We passed gave them changes we wanted them to make, and then moved on to the next step of giving them our designs.
I spent a lot of time designing everything in their requested format, and then even more time picking each of the colors. Something that was always a big hiccup was getting the colors just right. It took some time before our factory told us how they picked the colors they used and suggested we got a Pantone book.

In the meantime, it felt like every time we got samples, at least one of the pairs was a little off. After months of working together, our factory told us that in order to really move forward, all of our designs needed to consist of the same five colors.
We obviously weren’t excited about that, and made the decision to start hunting down another factory. The trickiest thing about this process was that we had never produced anything before!
We didn’t know if this was just how it worked. There was so much miscommunication and the process just felt so slow. We’d design something, wait a couple months to get it, only to realize it still wasn’t right.
We had no standard to compare this factory to, so it wasn’t until we found a really great factory that we realized how dysfunctional our relationship with the first factory had been.
What was previously taking months and many, many rounds of samples was now done in one or two rounds of samples. Making the decision to leave the first factory was key - our business wouldn’t be what it is if we hadn’t done that. Figuring out production and getting the product just right was what took the longest, by far.
We had the idea for Taft in May of 2013 and didn’t launch officially until March of the next year.
It took a lot of patience to wait for the product to be just right. We ended up working with three factories total, the third being the one we currently produce with. It took some time to make sure that not only was the product solid, but our relationship with the manufacturer was as well.

When it comes to our shoes, we actually found our factory through their Instagram account.  We had similar designs sampled in both China (working with our sock contacts to find a shoe factory) and in Spain so we could compare quality and pricing.
We got samples back and they were honestly pretty similar. We weren’t thrilled with either of them initially.
A few weeks after getting samples we found out that the Chinese factory we had sampled with was a bit shady. The factory owner had run off with $40k from another business he was supposed to be producing for, and was nowhere to be found.
If there was ever any question where we should produce, we got a lot of clarity really quick.
We obviously decided to go the Spanish route, but I still didn’t feel like the shoes were where they needed to be. The factory told me that, really, the best route was to fly out there and design the shoes in person.
My wife was due with our second baby any day but we felt it was best. We waited till our little girl arrived and booked my ticket to Spain from the hospital.
I left for about a week when she was two weeks old, and spent that time really getting to know the factory and designing the shoes. I designed every tiny detail and hand picked every sole and every type of leather. It was beyond valuable to be there in person - the process was just so much quicker. What would usually take months and thousands of emails took just a couple days.
If you have the luxury of time, sending product back and forth and back and forth will eventually get the job done. But we know now from our experience with shoes that it’s much, much easier to go in person. There were no surprises and no wondering if it would turn out right. I was able to explain what I wanted done and see it happen first hand. I couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of the shoes now. They’re exactly how I envisioned them.

How did you promote your business initially and where did your first sales come from? Any major media mentions or PR wins since then?

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Our very first sales came from Kickstarter about a year and a half ago!  We were featured on Gear Hungry, Cool Hunting, and Super Compressor during the campaign and that really helped boost our pledges.
We raised about $47k through Kickstarter and as soon as we fulfilled those orders, we immediately got to work building an Instagram following.

Right from the start, we felt of the importance of producing great photos and posting beautiful content.
We started to build a pretty sizeable following as a result of our photography and have used that as our primary strategy to push sales ever since.
Note: Be sure to take a look at how to build a massive following on Instagram.
Because of our presence on social media we’ve really organically become friends with people who also have a lot of social media influence.
We’re forever grateful to our blogger friends who continually post about our stuff and tag us in their photos. Our mentality has always been that if you create beautiful content and great products, people will want to share it.  

How did your sales pick up?

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

Our sales have really picked up in spurts. We had our first spurt with the Kickstarter and another big sales pick up when our Instagram following starting growing exponentially.
Our biggest pickup in sales definitely came from our Reddit hug.
We had a kind customer post about a sale we were having on our no-show socks. We’d been planning for months to launch shoes and had the socks at a steep discount to make room for some incoming shipments.
We intentionally hadn’t posted about the sale in hopes that people who wanted the socks would find them organically and it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.

We had over 2,500 orders in the space of 48 hours and have been doing everything we can to really keep that momentum going.
Beyond that, launching shoes has been a huge pick up in sales. 

How do you handle fulfilment and organize the back-end of your business? Can you share some key lessons and tips on doing this successfully?

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

Right from the beginning we decided to work through a fulfillment center.
We had over 1,000 orders from the Kickstarter campaign, and knew that in order to get them out in a timely fashion – that was the best way to go for us.

You were recently featured on Reddit and saw significant traction from that. How did that happen?

The whole Reddit experience was pretty nuts. A couple weeks ago we listed our socks at a pretty steep discount - we were preparing to launch our new line of shoes and needed to free up some space at our warehouse.
We chose not to post about the sale on our Instagram and had hopes that we’d sell through the socks from organic traffic to our site. One of our customers took note of the sale, and shared it on the Frugal Male Fashion Advice subreddit and things really took off from there.

A lot of other users were excited about the sale and I did my best to respond to every question and comment. People were really responsive to that interaction, and we ended up on several other subreddits because of it.
Before we knew it we were completely sold out of socks.
We were planning on launching shoes later in the week, but decided to take advantage of all that traffic and launch right then and there. It was really valuable to get feedback on the shoes and we actually ended up launching a pair we weren’t planning on starting out with because of all the feedback we got.

After being featured on Reddit, did you notice any other men's lifestyle blogs feature your product?

In our work with Taft we’ve really built a lot of great relationships with bloggers. Many of them have become friends and we interact regularly. But after our Reddit feature I definitely noticed a lot of our referring URLs were other blogs we hadn’t previously worked with, which was really exciting.
One of the biggest benefits of our Reddit feature is just getting our name out there more and being featured on these other blogs is a great way for that to happen.

How are you managing pre-orders with your online store? What is the process like from pre-order to fulfillment?

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The Reddit feature really forced our hand a bit earlier than we were expecting, so pre-orders is the only way to do it. We let pre-orders roll in for a couple days to see what kind of demand there would be.
After selling a couple hundred pairs of shoes in the first few days, I knew what quantities to produce the shoes at.
The shoes are currently in production and will be delivered around the end of December. We will ship our international orders from our warehouse in Spain and ship all US orders from our warehouse here in Utah. We will continue to take pre-orders on our site until the product gets here, and then get back to shipping same-day.
I am offering a special pre-order price on the shoes to help incentivize people to make the purchase now rather than wait until shoes are in stock. Pre-orders is a really amazing way to save money on inventory, warehousing, and production costs.
My goal is to be completely sold out of everything by the time the shoes are done being produced.

You mentioned you and your wife are running this business together. What has life been like since your recent explosive success?

Ever since our hit on Reddit it has been completely non-stop. I thought we were busy before but this is just a whole new level. I’ve been the “can’t-eat-can’t-sleep” kind of busy.
About three days into all the madness my wife and I realized we hadn’t had a real conversation in days. It felt like I had just been out of town or something. On the third or fourth day we finally found some time to go out and as soon as I got outside my eyes started burning because it was so bright - I realized it was the first time I’d even left the house in days.
We’ve just been on that grind.
My wife has been corralling the kids so I can get everything done and helping me any chance she gets. It’s tough but we just keep saying it’s the best kind of busy to be. We’re answering questions, communicating with our warehouse, placing orders, and working on re-stocking product all while continuing to create content for our Instagram account.

I’ll never forget the weekend of our Reddit hit. It was just total madness.

It was just total madness. My wife and I were driving up to meet some family for dinner when we started seeing orders trickle in quicker and quicker. We got about 7 or so orders on the drive up and had 55 by the time we got our food. We noticed all the traffic was coming from Reddit and found the post. We were so excited but had no idea what was to come. When we got home we realized the orders weren’t slowing down and, if anything, they were picking up.
We went to bed that night feeling very grateful.

I was frantically trying to keep up with all the questions we were getting on Reddit while expressing my gratitude over and over again for everyone who was buying socks.
At around midnight the orders were still coming in strong and my wife asked me if there was any way we’d sell out. Minimum order quantities are really high when it comes to socks so we had plenty. I assured my wife there was no way we could sell out overnight. She insisted I still put a cap on the number of orders we’d take so we could sleep without having to worry about it, which I did.
The next day was a Sunday, I woke up to hundreds and hundreds of order notifications but things seemed to be slowing down. I still felt confident there was no way we’d sell out, knowing just how many boxes of socks we had.

In one of our posts on Reddit I alluded to the fact that we needed to move all these socks to prep for our shoe launch. People started asking about the shoes, I started showing pictures, and before I knew it I was looking at my wife saying “I think I’m going to launch shoes right now!”
She told me to go with my gut, and I did. I had taken all the necessary product shots in the days before (we were planning to launch later in the week).
I wrote quick descriptions and listed the shoes for pre-order. Shoe sales immediately started trickling in around the same time I marked the women’s socks as sold out.
Unexpected launch shoes? Why not? Crazier things have happened.

What are your top recommendations for new store owners?

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Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. I do this all the time. I think “wow. they are so amazing and so successful, why am I not there?” And then I remember that they have been doing it for many years and have a whole team behind them.
Never compare yourself to brands/companies that are at a different stage. It is discouraging and not productive.

Work relentlessly to create a great product. If the product is great, then people will buy it and marketing becomes a lot easier.

Be willing to put in the work. I think one of the key characteristics entrepreneurs need is grit. Owning a business is gritty and messy and you just have to be willing to do that work.
But also.. keep perspective on what matters most. A thriving business means nothing to me if I’m failing at being a dad or husband.
I’m those things first and foremost and a business owner second. Sometimes the hardest part of owning a business is calling it a night, letting yourself be done for the day, knowing you can pick it all back up tomorrow.
Running a business is a marathon, not a sprint. So it’s important to take care of yourself and make sure you’re fit to be in it for the long-haul.
There’s nothing worse than burning out.

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Want to share your story? We'd love to hear it! Share your Shopify success story for a chance to be featured.

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About the Author

Tucker Schreiber is an entrepreneur and content crafter at Shopify. He writes to inspire and educate readers on all things commerce.

20 Highly Effective Ways to Promote a Product 

YOU CAN CREATE YOUR ONLINE STORE AND START YOUR GROWING WITH SHOPIFY

• by Casandra Campbell 
• Nov 23, 2015

You’ve found a product and created your store.
Now, what?
Once you’re up and running, it’s time to start driving traffic to your store and making sales. Whether you’re still trying to get your first sale, or you’ve been at a while, it’s always good to find more ways to promote your business.
If you’re looking to promote a product, read this list to find a strategy that you can use in your business. Once you do, click on the link to get step-by-step instructions on how to execute it.

1. Gift Guides

What do you do when you’re struggling to find a good gift idea? If you’re like most people, you Google “holiday gift ideas for coworkers” or “unique birthday presents”. Then you scroll through the piles of gift guides that pop up in the search results.

Why not get your own product included in these gift guides? They exist for just about every industry, type of person, and holiday you can think of. Look for the ones that rank on the first few pages in Google and reach out to see if you can be included. They could drive a lot of traffic back to your store.

2. Email Marketing

Email is the second most effective customer acquisition channel, behind organic search. And while ranking in search engines and getting organic traffic can take a while, email starts to work right away. That’s why you should be using email to promote your store.
There’s no need to spend all your time writing and sending emails. Make it easy on yourself by setting up a collection of automated email campaigns designed to help you make more sales. There are many options such as emailing new subscribers and offering them an incentive to shop, or emailing visitors who abandoned their cart and reminding them to finish their purchase.

3. Start An Affiliate Program

If you’re struggling to make sales and you don’t have the cash to hire sales or marketing help, consider adding an affiliate program to your store. You can get other people to promote your product for a commission. You’ll only have to pay them if they make a sale.
Affiliate programs typically work by creating a custom URL for each person promoting your products. They can share this link on social media, in a blog post reviewing your product, or even in a YouTube video where they’re showing it off. Through the custom links, you’ll be able to track who is driving sales for you so you can compensate

4. Land Your Business in the Press

Getting publicity is a great way to reach new customers and help more people discover your product. It’s also notoriously difficult to do. Mainstream journalists are inundated with press releases and pitches for stories. Improve your odds by targeting bloggers instead.
Instead of sending bloggers press releases, reach out with a personal email and ask if you can send them a sample. You can target bloggers in your industry, product-focused websites, and even social media influencers.

5. Go Live With Periscope

While Periscope is a very young social media network, it has demonstrated marketing potential. Many businesses are already promoting themselves with this live-streaming tool. Early adopters often do really well over the long-term on social media, so it’s worth it to dive in now, rather than waiting until it gets big.
There are many ways you can use Periscope to promote a product. In particular, you can use Periscope to offer a demo of your product, answer questions through a Q&A, and even take your customers behind the scenes to show them what’s special about the way you do things.

6. Pinterest

Pinterest is the place to be if you want to buy or sell products online. 93% of active pinners say they use Pinterest to plan purchases. Not surprisingly, many people use Pinterest to build wish lists. This makes it a great place to promote products—especially well-designed products that photograph well.
What’s even better is that pins tend to stick around for a long time. It’s not uncommon for pins to get viewed for months after they’re posted. Optimize your pins by posting when more people are online, using the right keywords, and using captivating images. You can even run contests to extend your reach. Make sure you enable Rich Pins to have additional product information included.

7. Pinterest Buyable Pins

If you run a Shopify store in the United States, you can take your Pinterest marketing to the next level by enabling Buyable Pins. This option makes it easier for Pinners to buy products they see on Pinterest while helping merchants sell more.
If you meet the eligibility requirements, you can enable Buyable Pins by adding the Pinterest Chanel to your Shopify store. Once set up, all your product pins will include a buy button—no matter who pins it.

8. Facebook Custom Audiences

Billions of people are on Facebook, and as an advertising platform, it offers very targeted options for running paid ads. One is these options is Facebook Custom Audiences.
With Facebook Custom Audiences, you can advertise to your website visitors or email subscribers. These ads tend to be very effective because you know more about who you’re targeting and can tailor your ad accordingly.

9. Facebook Shop Section

You can take your Facebook marketing a step further by adding a Facebook Shop Section to your Facebook page. This option makes it easier for people who discover your products on Facebook to buy them.
If you have a Shopify store, add Facebook as a sales channel. You’ll be able to create your own Shop Section on your Facebook page where fans can learn about your products, look at pictures, and click the buy button to make a purchase.

10. Twitter Buy Button

Much like the Facebook Shop Section and Buyable Pins, the Twitter Buy Button makes it easy for Twitter users to buy products they discover on the platform. Once enabled, any product listed in your store will include a Buy Button when it’s shared on Twitter—even if it was shared in the past.
Currently, the Twitter Buy Button is only available to merchants and shoppers in the United States. If you’re an eligible Shopify merchant, you can add the Twitter Channel to your store to enable the Buy Button.

11. Uncrate

Uncrate is a product curation website with a massive, loyal following. The people who frequent Uncrate don’t just like looking at cool products, they like to buy them too. Getting your product featured on Uncrate can drive significant sales and lead to other press opportunities down the road.
Getting featured on Uncrate isn’t easy. There’s no formal process, but one thing is certain: your product has to be cool to make the cut. Some companies get discovered by Uncrate, but others have had success after contacting the company to tell them about their product, or even sending them a sample.

12. Referral Marketing

Referral marketing, also known as word of mouth marketing, is one of the oldest marketing methods around. Referral marketing is all about getting other people to talk about your product in a way that will drive awareness and sales.
These days you can use the web to drive even more referral marketing. Not only does it allow you to reach more people, the web makes it easier for other people to share your content—and for you to track its impact.

13. Blogger Outreach

One of the most difficult parts of starting a new business is promoting a product when you don’t have an audience. If you don’t have your own community built up, you either have to pay to drive traffic to your website, or tap into someone else’s audience until you have your own.
Blogger outreach is a great way to build prestige around your product and get it in front of interested shoppers. Ask authoritative bloggers to feature or review your product. If they have an engaged audience that trusts their opinion, it could drive a lot of traffic and sales

14. Reddit Ads

While most businesses don’t use Reddit ads, they can be quite effective. In fact, sometimes the least used advertising networks are the most profitable because the cost is lower, and there is more opportunity to stand out.
Try advertising on Reddit to promote your product. You can create a sponsored post in subreddits related to your business. Use it to talk about your product and offer a discount. The key is to make sure it blends in with the other posts on the subreddit.

15. Pop-Up Shop

If your business is online, you don’t have to open a retail store to get the benefits of selling in person. You can run a pop-up shop instead. Chances are there’s an unused space in your city that would love to have you come in for a week—or even just a weekend—and set up shop.
Running a pop-up shop will help you create exclusivity around some of your products, get covered in local media, take advantage of seasonal shopping, unload old inventory, and chat with your customers in person to learn more about them.

16. Blog

Blogging is a great way to promote your store. Done well, blogging can be an effective way to drive traffic and promote the lifestyle around your products. In fact, one study by Hubspot found that the more you blog, the more traffic your website gets.
Use your own blog to drive traffic and promote your products. When done effectively, blogging drives search engine traffic, attracts customers, and captures the attention of the media and high-profile bloggers who could write about you.

17. Instagram

Instagram has over 400 million active users and its visual focus is perfect for promoting products. Half of those users are on Instagram every day. Any brand would do well to share their products on this network.
There are several ways to use Instagram to promote your store. You can share captivating images of your products, share a stop motion video of one of your products in action, run a contest, or reach out to influential Instagram accounts and ask them to share your product.

18. YouTube

In 2014, YouTube became the second largest search engine, behind Google. What’s more, YouTube videos can also rank in traditional search engines like Google. This presents a huge traffic opportunity.
You don’t need to create a viral video to get results on YouTube. You can still promote your products with interesting or helpful videos. Many people may already be looking for your products or brand on YouTube. By creating a branded channel, with your own videos, you can control the narrative.

19. Vine

Although Vine isn’t as trendy as it used to be, it’s still a well-used platform. As of August 2015, there were over 200 million active users. This unique platform lets smartphone owners create and view six-second videos. There are still plenty of opportunities for brands to promote their products here.
One way to do this is to create your own videos showing off your product, running a contest, or otherwise engaging consumers. Another is to reach out to popular Vine users and see if they’ll promote your product.

20. Run a Contest

Contests are an easy and affordable way to get your brand in front of a lot of people. By giving away your product, you can make sure your contest gets in front of the right kind of people: potential customers.
However, many contests fail. There are a few key mistakes to avoid when running a contest to promote your business. Make sure the platform, the timing, the messaging, and the steps people have to take to enter your contest are well thought out

3 Steps to Maximize Your Client’s Holiday Revenue Before 2016 

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

• by James Corr 
• Nov 17, 2015

The holiday season is coming, which means that your client could make the bulk of their annual revenue in just a few weeks… if they market the right way.
And with many ecommerce brands, it’s a big “if”!
You want your client to succeed, and their holiday sale to be record-breaking, exhilarating, and actually beneficial for the growth of their brand in the long run.
Does it sound like a tall order? Actually, not at all!
To guarantee that your client makes the most out of the upcoming holiday season, you can use my 3-step framework. It relies on these key elements:

1. Preventing the most common time and money sinks that make holiday sales under-perform.
2. Maximizing revenue from existing customers, and new leads.
3. Fattening up the long tail of sales after the holiday season is over.

So let’s dig in!

Step 1: Prepare the groundwork

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Before your client is ready to roll out any festive offers, you need to make sure that their shop can handle all the excitement. Make sure you check off all these items well before the craziness of the holidays spirits you, and your client, away...

Holiday-proof their Shopify theme

Performance optimization is a huge factor in conversions: the longer your client’s store takes to load, or respond to a request, the more customers they will lose to simple frustration.
Here’s what you can do to make your client’s Shopify theme holiday-proof:

1. Simplify and remove the bulkiest design elements: background images, carousels and other “flashy” but cumbersome imagery, outdated classes and values in the stylesheet etc.
   
2. Optimize all the graphics on the website to be as light and fast-loading as possible. It doesn’t take much effort, and the wins in loading time will be tremendous.
   
3. Take advantage of “lazy loading”, so your client’s store page only loads the elements in direct view of the customer, and then dynamically loads the rest as they scroll through the site.
   

For more great tips and tricks on how to holiday-proof your client's Shopify theme, check out this blog post on how to optimize themes for performance.

Optimize the checkout flow

To maximize your client’s holiday conversions, you need to address all the “weak links” in their checkout process, starting with performance (which I’ve already mentioned).
Here’s what else you can do to make your client’s website more conversion-friendly:

1. Check for any inconspicuous or too low-key interactive elements and calls to action the buyers could easily miss (like the cart count, or “Add to Cart” button).
   
2. Streamline as much of the process as possible between checkout and order completion. When customers don’t have to wait for the cart to update, and all the potential costs are visible upfront, it reduces potential friction.
   
3. Simplify and improve your client’s shipping and returns policy for the holiday season, and highlight the changes during checkout. This helps to overcome objections and boosts conversions.
   

Test the site’s responsiveness

All Shopify checkout pages are fully responsive, but can you say the same for your client’s website and shopping cart? Get into their store from a variety of phones and tablets, and see how easy it is to make a sale.
If you want to get other testers to do it for you, there’s a variety of tools available. Use Peek (free and basic recording of a user interacting with your site), or UserTesting (a longer, more in-depth test with detailed feedback).

Here, you can see Birchbox going the extra mile with their holiday design by directly addressing the needs of people shopping for holiday gifts.

Step 2: Plan your insanely-high-value campaign

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A regular sale isn’t a great way to stand out and win over new customers (or even earn some brand loyalty with existing ones) - your client will need to step up their game. To help them do so, here’s what you can do to make sure that the expectations of the customers are exceeded:

Create personalized offers

Buyers expect personalization these days - in fact, 70% of them do, according to a survey by AgilOne. To give customers recognition and the personal touch, make use of smart segmentation:

• by demographics and psychographics
  
• by shopping history
  
• by average order volume, etc.
  

Personalization isn’t just appealing, it also makes sense from a marketing standpoint - you don’t want to sell to every customer the same way, but instead to tailor your approach to their buying habits, preferences, and demographics.
Most ecommerce-friendly email service providers should support sophisticated segmentation - if they don’t, consider finding your client a different provider (like Klaviyo), and watch their ROI skyrocket.

Do something unusual

If your client doesn’t usually offer free shipping, why not offer it on every item during the sale? Learn how to set it up here. There’s a holiday value proposition that will open wallets!
Alternatively, you can help your client organize freebies, festive giveaways, and do lots of other things that build loyalty and add value - all without depreciating their brand.
This giveaway offer on Headphone.Com is so simple and compelling that it’s very hard to pass up. And you can easily adapt it for the holiday season.

Do things that don’t scale

It could be as simple as a holiday postcard with every order… or it could be as involved as a live chat rep standing by, ready to answer people’s concerns and manage objections (Olark can help your client with that last one). Related to personalization, this strategy is incredible when you can’t rely on price cuts alone to move the merchandise.

Use scarcity and urgency

Create timed offers, limit the amount of items that can be bought at a deep discount, and otherwise drive up the perceived value of what your client is selling. You could even help them create a special, holiday-themed option for their most popular product to drive sales… and make it a limited edition.
You can use an app like Behavioral Targeting by Addshoppers to create relevant, high-urgency offers that convert extremely well (even with a 50% lift, according to some case studies).

Step 3: Stretch the long tail

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After the holiday bonanza is over, your client will have new customers expecting a stellar experience, and long-time customers who are still in the mood to buy. Not screwing up the long-tail sales is a vital part of a successful holiday marketing strategy.
So let’s see what you can do (which is a lot)!

Get them on a loyalty program

Using tools like Sweet Tooth and other customer loyalty apps makes it very easy to reward customers who stick around and buy again. And because your client will let them know how valued they are, their brand will be top-of-mind for them next holiday season (or before).

Sneak some discounts to non-buyers

Much in the same way as you’d bring people back to an abandoned cart, you can help your client to retarget customers who never bought something.
Just let your client say that, in their book, the holiday isn’t over until everyone has walked off with a precious thing of their own! You can bring non-buyers back in 2 main ways:

1. Do a late cart abandonment email after the sale is over (if you have their email address), and offer an exclusive discount - another moment when personalization comes in handy!
2. Launch a Facebook retargeting campaign after the sale and bring them back to the product they were viewing.

It might take something extra to make people come back and complete their order after the holiday craziness. A time-sensitive 15%, as in this example, should do it!

Use a personal touch with new customers

Together with your client, try to do things that don’t scale, yet do wonders for customer loyalty. For example, sending a postcard or a small gift with their shipment costs a little extra, true — but if it increases the chances that they gain a long-term customer, it’s an excellent investment.
Another good way for your client to stay connected with new buyers is to ask them for reviews or feedback. A tool like Yotpo can give your client a perfect way to do this in a quick, frictionless manner.
Finally, a third strategy to use would be to design an onboarding sequence that familiarizes a new customer with your client’s brand. It should give them a great reason to stick around and continue to shop in your client’s store.

Have a record-breaking year

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Holiday season is an important, exciting, and scary time for your client. By following these 3 steps, you will ensure they have a record-breaking holiday season, and acquire high-quality customers that will buy from them beyond the holidays (and at full prices).

How to Predict If Your Next Venture Will Be Profitable.Start build online store with Shopify

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• by Casandra Campbell 
• Nov 9, 2015

Starting a business often carries risk. As the saying goes, "You have to spend money to make money."
While that's not always true, there is one very effective way to lower your risk: do a break-even analysis. A break-even analysis will tell you exactly what you need to do in order to break even and make back your initial investment.
If you run a business—or you’re thinking about starting one—you should know how to do a break-even analysis. It’s a crucial activity for making important business decisions.

What is Break-Even Analysis?

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Break-even analysis sounds complicated, but it's actually quite simple. It’s a calculation that will tell you how many units of something you need to sell to break even.
For example, how many laptop cases you need to sell to cover your warehousing costs. Or how many hours of service you need to sell to pay for your office space. Anything you sell beyond your break-even point will add profit.
There are a few definitions you need to know in order to understand break-even analysis.

• Fixed Costs: Expenses that stay the same no matter how much you sell.
• Variable Costs: Expenses that fluctuate up and down with sales.

Why You Must Do a Break-Even Analysis

There are many benefits to doing a break-even analysis.

Price Smarter

Finding your break-even point will help you price your products better. A lot of psychology goes into effective pricing, but knowing how it will affect your profitability is just as important. You need to make sure you can pay all your bills.

Cover Fixed Costs

When most people think about pricing, they think about how much their product costs to create. Those are considered variable costs. You still need to cover your fixed costs like insurance or web development fees. Doing a break-even analysis makes sure you do.

Catch Missing Expenses

It’s easy to forget about expenses when you’re thinking through a business idea. When you do a break-even analysis you have to lay out all your financial commitments to figure out your break-even point. This will limit the number of surprises down the road.

Set Revenue Targets

After completing a break-even analysis, you know exactly how much you need to sell to be profitable. This will help you set more concrete sales goals for you and your team. When you have a clear number in mind, it will be much easier to follow through.

Make Smarter Decisions

Entrepreneurs often make business decisions based on emotion. If they feel good about a new venture, they go for it. How you feel is important, but it’s not enough. Successful entrepreneurs make their decisions based on facts. It will be a lot easier to decide when you’ve put in the work and have useful data to work with.

Limit Financial Strain

Doing a break-even analysis helps mitigate risk by showing you when to avoid a business idea. It will help you avoid failures and limit the financial toll that bad decisions can have on your business. Instead, you can be realistic about the potential outcomes.

Fund Your Business

A break-even analysis is a key component of any business plan. It’s usually a requirement if you want to take on investors or other debt to fund your business. You have to prove your plan is viable. More than that, if the analysis looks good, you will be more comfortable taking on the burden of financing.
Doing a break-even analysis leads to better financial planning for your business. 

When to Use a Break-Even Analysis

There are four common scenarios when it helps to do a break-even analysis.

1. Starting a New Business

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If you’re thinking about starting a new business, a break-even analysis is a must. Not only will it help you decide if your business idea is viable, but it will force you to do research and be realistic about costs, as well as think through your pricing strategy.

2. Creating a New Product

If you already have a business, you should still do a break-even analysis before committing to a new product—especially if that product is going to add significant expense. Even if your fixed costs, like an office lease, stay the same, you’ll need to work out the variable costs related to your new product and set prices before you start selling.

3. Adding a New Sales Channel

Any time you add a new sales channel, your costs will change—even if your prices don’t. For example, if you’ve been selling online and you’re thinking about doing a pop-up shop, you’ll want to make sure you at least break even. Otherwise, the financial strain could put the rest of your business at risk.

4. Changing the Business Model

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If you’re thinking about changing your business model, for example, switching from a retail store to ecommerce, you should do a break-even analysis. Your costs could change significantly and this will help you figure out if your prices need to change too.

Break-Even Analysis Formula

Before we start calculating break-even points, let’s break down how the formula works.
Your break-even point is equal to your fixed costs, divided by your average price, minus variable costs.
Break-Even Point = Fixed Costs/(Average Price — Variable Costs)
Basically, you need to figure out what your net profit per unit sold is and divide your fixed costs by that number. This will tell you how many units you need to sell.
As you now know, your product sales need to pay for more than just the costs of producing them. The remaining profit is known as the contribution margin because it contributes cash to the fixed costs.
Now that you know what it is, how it works, and why it matters, let’s break down how to calculate your break-even point.
Before we get started, get your free copy of the break-even analysis template here. After you make a copy, you’ll be able to edit the template and do your own calculations.

Step 1 - Gather Your Data

The first step is to list all the costs of doing business. Everything from the cost of your product, to rent, to bank fees. Think through everything you have to pay for and write it down.
The next step is to divide them into fixed costs, and variable costs.

1. Fixed Costs

Fixed costs are any costs that stay the same, regardless of how much product you sell. This could include things like rent, software subscriptions, insurance, and labour.
Make a list of everything you have to pay for no matter what. In most cases, you can list the expenses as monthly amounts unless you’re considering an event with a shorter time frame, such as a three-day festival. Add everything up. If you’re using the break-even analysis spreadsheet, it will do the math for you automatically.

2. Variable Costs

Variable costs are costs that fluctuate based on the amount of product you sell. This could include things like materials, commissions, payment processing, and also labour.
Some costs could go in either category, depending on your business. If you have salaried staff, they will go under fixed costs. But if you pay part-time hourly employees who only work when it’s busy, they will be considered variable costs.
Make a list of all your costs that fluctuate depending on how much you sell. List the price per unit sold and add up all the costs, or use the spreadsheet which will add them up automatically.

3. Average Price

Finally, decide on a price. Don’t worry if you’re not ready to commit to a final price yet, you can change this later. Keep in mind, this is the average price. If you offer some customers bulk discounts, it will lower the average price.

Step 2 - Plug In Your Data

Now it’s time to plug in your data. The spreadsheet will pull your fixed cost total and variable cost total up into the break-even calculation. All you need to is to fill in is your average price in the appropriate cell. After that, the math will happen automatically. The number that gets calculated in the top right cell under break-even units is the number of units you need to sell to break even.

In the break-even analysis example above, the break-even point is 92.5 units.

Step 3 - Make Adjustments

Feel free to experiment with different numbers. See what happens if you lower your fixed or variable costs. Or try changing the price. You may not get it right the first time, so make adjustments as you go.

Warning: Don’t Forget Any Expenses

The most common pitfall of break-even analysis is forgetting things. Especially variable costs. Break-even analyses are an important step towards making important business decisions. That’s why you need to make sure your data is as accurate as possible.
To make sure you don’t miss any costs, think through your entire operations from start to finish. If you think through packing a fragile product to ship it, you might remember that you need to add bubble wrap to the box. If you’re thinking through your festival setup, you might remember that you’ll need to provide napkins along with the food you’re selling. These are variable costs that need to be included.

Limitations of Break-Even Analysis

Break-even analysis plays an important role in making business decisions, but it’s limited in the type of information it can provide.

Not a Predictor of Demand

It’s important to note that a break-even analysis is not a predictor of demand. It won’t tell you what your sales are going to be, or how many people will want what you’re selling. It will only tell you how many units you need to sell in order to break even. It’s also important to note that demand isn’t stable. As you change your price, the number of people willing to buy your product will change as well.

Dependent on Reliable Data

Sometimes costs fall into both fixed and variable categories. This can make calculations complicated and you’ll likely need to wedge them into one or the other. For example, you may have a baseline labour cost no matter what, as well as an additional labour cost top that could fluctuate based on how much product you sell.
The accuracy of your break-even point depends on accurate data. If you don’t feed good data into the formula, you won’t get a reliable result.

Simplistic

The break-even point formula is simplistic. Many businesses have multiple products with multiple prices. It won’t be able to pick up that nuance. You’ll likely need to work with one product at a time or estimate an average price based on all the products you might sell. If this is the case, it’s best to run a few different scenarios to be better prepared.
As prices fluctuate, so do costs. This model assumes that only one thing changes at a time. Instead, if you lower your price and sell more, your variable costs might decrease because you have more buying power or are able to work more efficiently. Ultimately it’s only an estimate.

Ignores Time

The break-even analysis ignores fluctuations over time. The time frame will be dependent on the period you use to calculate fixed costs (monthly is most common). Although you’ll see how many units you need to sell over the course of the month, you won’t see how things change if your sales fluctuate week to week. For this, you’ll need to rely on good cash flow management.
It also doesn’t take the future into account. Break-even analysis only looks at here and now. If your raw materials cost doubles next year, your break-even point will be a lot of higher unless you raise your prices. If you raise your prices, you could lose customers. This delicate balance is always in flux.

Ignores Competitors

As a new entrant to the market, you’re going to affect competitors. They could change their prices, which could affect demand for your product, causing you to change your prices too. If they grow quickly and a raw material you both use becomes more scarce, the cost could go up.  
Ultimately, break-even analysis will give you a very solid understanding of the baseline conditions for being successful. It is a must. But it’s not the only research you need to do before you starting or making changes to a business.

Strategies to Lower Your Break-Even Point

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What if you complete your break-even analysis and find out that the number of units you need to sell is too high? If the number seems unrealistic or unattainable, don’t panic. You may be able to make some adjustments to lower your break-even point.

1. Lower Fixed Costs

See if there’s an opportunity to lower your fixed costs. The lower you can get them, the fewer units you’ll need to sell in order to break-even. For example, if you’re thinking about opening a retail store and numbers aren’t working out, consider selling online instead. How does that affect your fixed costs?

2. Raise Your Prices

If you raise your prices, you won’t need to sell as many units to break even. The marginal contribution per unit sold will be higher. When thinking about raising your prices, be mindful of what the market is willing to pay, and expectations that come with a price. You won’t need to sell as many units, but you’ll still need to sell enough. And if you charge more, consumers may expect a better product or better customer service.

3. Lower Variable Costs

Lowering your variable costs is often the most difficult option. Especially if you’re just going into business. But the more you scale, the easier it will be to reduce variable costs. It’s worth trying to lower your costs by negotiating with your suppliers, changing suppliers, or changing your process. For example, maybe you’ll find that packing peanuts are cheaper than bubble wrap for shipping fragile products.

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About The Author

Casandra Campbell is an entrepreneur, craft beer nerd, and content creator at Shopify

 Success story with Shopify ,sell  online worldwide.Just try build online store free.

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Mindzai Toys

• Opened in 2012

 

Mindzai gives artists a great platform to showcase their work, while providing customers the hottest products.
Mindzai also makes DIY toys: small blank dolls on which artists can unleash their creativity. Founder Chris Tsang realized that, while a $500 canvas isn’t affordable for everyone, the $10 DIY toys are accessible and original, allowing artists to exercise their imagination in a new way.
It’s fitting that Mindzai means just that: what your mind sees — your imagination.

We started Mindzai in 2006, it wasn’t always a shop, it was a blog before, and we met some great artists along the way.
Where I had the most fun was just trying to make a difference in other artists’ life. I wanted to do something to really help that creative world so we started Mindzai Creative Shop.
We wanted to sell something awesome, sell something creative so we started to pick toys, and do designer toys was just this awesome scene that we started to get into. Traditionally artists like to use wood canvas, printed canvas, or just a blank canvas to paint on.
A blank DIY toy is just another canvas. It just allows them to express their creativity in another way, and generally I find that you see something more fun and you see something different come out of the artists mind.
I love how these little toys are because not everybody can buy a $500 canvas, but almost anybody can buy a ten dollar little piece of art. It’s not a toy anymore, it’s something they want to put on their shelf and treasure.
Chris Tsang and some of his products —mindzai.com

"The most important thing that you have to do is to have faith in yourself." —Chris Tsang, Owner

What are the key factors that have helped your store be successful?

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Last year we started to think about how to do a website so we started to look around for a great e-commerce platform that was flexible enough for me, that thought about mobile first. We ended up choosing Shopify. I think the best thing about Shopify is that it’s made me not have to worry about anything that has to do with the e-commerce portion.
When I received my first order online I remember the exact moment that someone bought something. It was only a thirty dollar item but I was just so excited! It was validating all my thoughts, validating everything — it was the best feeling in the world.
Chris Tsang's story —mindzai.com

What are your top recommendations for new store owners?

The most important thing that you have to do is to have faith in yourself. If you try to make everything as perfect as you can it’s really going to show in your end product.
A lot of people will appreciate that in the end.

Any Closing Remarks?

Mindzai is just a culmination of all things creative around me. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

Start create your brand new online store

Shopify and Uber Reinvent Local Shipping 

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• by Jason Normore
• Oct 14, 2015

Now Shopify merchants can deliver their products to local customers faster than ever.
We’ve partnered with Uber to do what once seemed impossible—make affordable, reliable same-day delivery a reality for even the smallest business. With Shopify and UberRUSH, your customers can get their online orders in hours not days, making last minute online shopping convenient and impulse buying irresistible.
After today, you’ll find UberRUSH couriers hurrying through the streets of New York, San Francisco, and Chicago delivering packages from Shopify stores. If you operate an online store in one of those cities, you can soon offer your customers same-day delivery. We’re actively working with the Uber team to expand this service into more locations.

How does UberRUSH work?

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Shipping with UberRUSH is like having your own on-demand courier. When a customer requests same-day delivery, simply pack the order, and then schedule an UberRUSH pickup from the order’s fulfillment screen. Within minutes, an UberRUSH courier will arrive, pick the order up, and promptly hand-deliver it anywhere in the city.
With UberRUSH, you and your customers can easily track the order’s exact location from pickup to drop off. You can keep track of the order in real-time right from Shopify, and your customers will be emailed a link to UberRUSH’s live map so they can keep track, too.

How to get started with UberRUSH

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We’ll be rolling out UberRUSH to select merchants over the coming weeks. You’ll be able to install the UberRUSH app when you see this home card:
Setup only takes a minute. Just fill in your contact details, mobile phone number, and any special delivery instructions, then click save. Once the app is set up, anytime a local customer checks out from your online store, they’ll be able to select UberRUSH from the shipping options.